and i remembered some of the earlier deficit reduction battles we had. i voted for virtually all of them. and i was thinking what is changed since those debates? and i think there have been two major changes. number one the deficit is clearly much greater, and that's an added dimension. but secondly, the -- when i think of the ways & means committee, what a change there's been in the competition. when i joined ways & means, barbara had just left the ranking member, and he then went the world bank. i worked with bill frenzel on trade. bill archer was handling the tax material, mainly and bill was working on health care. i think a second major change that effects the debate is changing composition of the republican party. i think it has moved very much more to the right describe it from the days when i joined the committee. and i think that makes it very much more difficult to handle the problems that we have before us. so let me just comment briefly on where we are. you heard the president yesterday. we've had spending cuts of a billion and a half or tril